This sermon was preached at Deer Creek Church, on March 22nd, 2026. The text is Leviticus 23. You can listen to the sermon below. This is an edited summary.
What does your calendar say about you? If you were to pull out your phone, or your physical calendar, and you looked through the various events that organize your week – what do they indicate about who you are?
I took a moment this last week to examine my own calendar, and this is what I observed about myself. First, my wife and I love to play pickleball. That happens about every other day. Second, I work at Deer Creek as a church planter. You would notice that my religious occupation dictates much of my week. Third, my weekends remain completely empty on the calendar. I treat my calendar as a necessary evil – so when I can help it, I love to keep the weekends free so that I can use my time however I want to without being tied down to a firm plan. That too tells you something about me.
Annie Dillard was a very successful writer in the 20th century. She had all the accolades. Pulitzer prize winner, New York Times Bestseller, and more. Brilliant woman. In the 90’s, she wrote a very good book on the discipline of writing. In this work, she approached the concept of a calendar this way:
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing… A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”
Do you see what she is saying? Our calendars, how we structure our days and weeks and years, are representations of the logic that orders our lives.
Now, why does this matter, and why am I sharing this at the beginning of a sermon from Leviticus? Well – this point is not actually my own, or Annie Dillards. God himself made this very clear thousands of years ago in the book of Leviticus.
As Daniel has shown us, this book functions as the priestly manual for the Israelites. It specifies how exactly God wants to be worshipped. Leviticus also connects worship with a life of obedience. God’s people are clearly instructed to live in a particular way. This is called the “holiness code.” This week, Leviticus continues to build upon this second theme of holiness and worship. Instead of detailing how God’s people are to live on a day to day basis, this passage shows us how they were to structure the year in holy worship to God. How we spend our days matters to God.
We are going to work through this wonderful text by looking at three things:
- The Purpose of Feasts (What it meant for Israel)
- The Problem with Feasts (Israel/We can’t keep them)
- The Perfection of Feasts (Jesus!)
The Purpose of Feasts
Before we can go anywhere or do anything with this text we must come to understand what God was originally communicating by handing down this elaborate calendar. Allow me to briefly summarize God’s commanded calendar, with their intended purposes.
Beginning with verse 3, God clarifies that every week is to begin with a Sabbath day. A day of solemn rest, where no one works, and is instead to worship God. The word “convocation here” describes a holy worship service. So, every week begins with a holy day for the people to worship God.
Then, in verse 4 we get the first described festival. On the 14th day of the first month of the year, the people celebrate the Passover festival. This feast looked back into the past, towards Israel’s freedom from Egyptian slavery. Specifically, the Passover event was the day in which God told the people to cover their doorways with blood so that his justice might pass over them. Every good Israelite would have this event burned into their consciousness – and God says every year begins with its remembrance.
Immediately after that is the Feast of Unleavened Bread which begins on the 15th day of the month and lasts a full week. This feast essentially is the same as Passover, remembering what God did in freeing them from Egypt. Looking into the past, giving thanks for God’s deliverance.
Starting with verse 9, God introduces the feast of first fruits. This was a seasonally determined feast. After the harvest, God commands his people to come and offer the first fruits of what they gather before they eat any of it themselves.
This then connects with verse 16, where the Feast of Weeks is established. Like the previous feast, this one is all about food and God’s provision. Fifty days after the seventh sabbath of the year, so right around May or June marking the Summer harvest, the people were to again bring God their first fruits alongside many other offerings. This too, just like all the other feasts, was to be a holy day, a worshipful day, making offerings before the Lord and refraining from all kinds of work.
Both the feast of Firstfruits and the Feast of Weeks entail giving God the greatest, freshest portion of their harvest season. This is an act of thanksgiving. The people are lifting up their provisions to God saying “this is from you!”
But these feasts also express trust in what God will do in the future.
If you live in an agricultural society, what is the most precious thing in the entire world to you? The food you grow. Your crops and livestock are not just bartering chips. They are the literal food on the table. If you don’t have a good harvest, or if you don’t do your job well, it's not like you are going to lose the spare car, or have to go on food stamps. You and your family starve to death.
When each of these feasts call for sacrifices and first fruits of the harvest, this is no small ask. Nor is it menial. When the Israelite farmer comes to the Feast of Weeks and offers up the best he has to offer from the last harvest, he is saying “God I know this is from you, and I trust you will provide again.”
Verse 23 introduces the feast of trumpets, which would happen in the seventh month of the year. This feast lasted one day, and consisted of rest, worship, and memorial. This was a day for Israel to remember, and reflect upon the Lord with joyfulness and celebration.
Then, in verse 26, comes the Day of Atonement. This was a day for the people of Israel to once again draw near to God in holy worship. They were to humble themselves (maybe in contrast to the Feast of Trumpets?), and make the correct sacrifices before the Lord to atone for their sin, and cleanse the tabernacle. This was a solemn, but beautiful day where God’s people remembered they had sinned, needed cleansing, and received cleansing through sacrifice.
Finally, with verse 34, God ordains the final event of the calendar year: the Feast of Booths. This took place on the 15th day of the seventh month, and lasted an entire week. This, like all the others, was a day for holy worship and offering sacrifices – but it was also an end of year celebration of God. For this feast, God commands the people to take palms, good food, and rejoice in his presence. However, they were not just to rejoice, they were to build little huts and carry out the feasts while living in these little constructs.
Why? God specifies that this is so that as they celebrate and rejoice, they might remember the fact that God led them, and gave them shelter as they wandered through the wilderness.
Wow, that was a lot. Multiple dates, names, and descriptions. I already know that some of you absolutely hate your calendar and so you checked out as soon as I started. That is totally okay. But now we get to ask the real question: what was the purpose of all that? Why is this in the Bible? Why does God, in his infinite wisdom, care how his people structure their years?
See how all of this comes together. The feasts, taken as a whole calendar, lead Israel to remember what God has done, worship God for who he is, and express trust in what God will do.
In the biblical culture, these feasts were identity shaping events. They were no small thing. So, in doing this, God is sanctifying his people by shaping their identity. He is ordering their calendar and therefore saying something about the sorts of people they should be: holy and devoted unto the Lord.
We actually understand this intuitively, and our culture is not the exact same, but there is still a degree of continuity. Think about the Fourth of July. That is about the closest we get to an “American Feast Day.” It happens every year on the same day, and it is a day of celebration.
When you light that firecracker, or watch that mortar explode in the sky, something inside of you is learning to say “I love being American and doing crazy things, and rebelling against the British.”
Why are the Feasts here? Because they lead the people of God towards a life of loving communion with God.
God is not saying “I want to fill up your calendar with meetings.” He is not after business. He is not interested in legalistic code. He does not want to complicate Israel’s year, he wants to be Israel’s year.
God is saying “I want your life to revolve around me. Who I am, what I have done, and trust in what I will do. Every week, every month, every year, I want you and all those around you to have your mind, body and soul captivated by my goodness, faithfulness, and provision.
In the first month of the year, I want you to think of me, and worship me, and spend a whole week remembering what I did in the Passover. And a quarter of the way through the year, I want you to be with me. And half way through the year, I want you to focus on my blessings. And every time you reap your harvest, I want you to think of me, and worship me, and give thanks through offering.
The feasts reveal that this is God’s heart. We do not keep these feasts today. I will explain why in just a moment. But the truth is, nothing about God’s heart has changed. God, today, desires the very same thing from his people.
God desires your entire self. He wants to be your life. Your treasure. He has no interest in arbitrarily filling your calendar. He has called you to himself. He is your God, and he desires for you to be his people. No distractions. No idols. He is not after your arbitrary obedience. He desires to shape you as a son or daughter of the King. He wants to have communion with you. This is still God’s heart.
The Problem with Feasts
Leviticus 23 lays down this beautiful calendar year. A schedule of heartfelt devotion and communion with God. How many times, throughout the rest of the Old Testament, we see the nation of Israel successfully keep the complete calendar? We don’t.
We see attempts, bits of obedience strung together. A festival here or there. A revival that lasts for a while, but eventually fizzles into nothing.
There is no problem with the feasts, there is only a problem with those keeping the feasts. Because of sin, the people of God walk away from God’s design, not towards it. These feasts that were designed to set Israel apart in communion and devotion became artifacts, cold and forgotten.
But this is not Israel’s problem. It is our problem. Leviticus 23 reveals the God of the universe stretching his hand out to us saying “center your life around me, and find true life! Let your year revolve around my goodness” And yet what is natural for our human hearts?
“What if I built it around my business instead? What if the mountains dictated my year? Or my desire for an incredible career?”
In my own life, as I look back through the years, the worst, driest periods of my life have all come when I orient my days, weeks, months, and years around things that are not God.
My wife and I have been married for over five years, but I still remember what it was like when we were dating. Faith, my wife, is an absolutely incredible woman, and I was simply head over heels for her. Still am, by the way. But during that first year of dating, I started to notice something sick in my heart. It did not make sense to me. I had an amazing thing going, spending hours and hours with this wonderful woman who became my best friend.
It was only later that I realized what my problem was. That year, I oriented my life around this wonderful woman. And even though she was incredible, her goodness was not enough to build my life around. The more I only thought about her, oriented my time around her, and so on, the more spiritually desolate I felt.
The problem was not her. It was not the dating process. It was me. It was the sinfulness within me that wanted to allow for my year to be dictated by my own desire. This is our problem with the Feasts of God. They beckon us close. But our sinful nature pushes away.
I played tennis growing up, and there was no one that I watched more than Roger Federer. He was the best, and by far the most elegant to watch. If he contacted me and said “hey, for the rest of your life, I’d like to make a relationship with you a priority. So, let’s set aside time together, at the beginning of every week, and at the beginning of each quarter, and for good measure let’s spend a full week together at the beginning and end of the year. I want to shape your tennis game. I want to be close.”
What do you think would go on in my heart? Roger Federer wants to spend time with me, and help shape me, year after year? What an incredible honor.
“Let’s go to the mountains this week!”
“No way – Roger Federer and I are catching up.”
This is an absurd example. But this is what sin has done to us. Roger Federer is not reaching out to mentor my tennis game. The God of the entire universe is inviting me into something infinitely more significant than a tennis match, but life eternal with him.
And we run in the other direction.
As great as Roger Federer is – he is but a candle to the Son of God. And yet, we are quick to prioritize almost anything else. We build our lives around sports, pleasure, family, work, careers and more. This is the nasty problem with the feasts. They reveal the sickly condition of the human heart to run away from life itself, and please itself with a slow, sinful death apart from communion with God.
The God of the Heavens and Earth invites us to build our years around him, and we fail to do so. This is the problem.
The Perfection of Feasts
Now, if you’ve been listening, you should be rather worried. You should be thinking to yourself “Caleb, if this is what God desires of me then I am well and truly short of his design.”
Or even more so, there should be a part of you that is crying out right now: “Caleb, if you are telling me that God wants communion with me, how on earth do I get this?! What do I need to do? I know that I’m broken, and I feel my need, so do I keep these feasts? Will they bring me closer to God?
The people of God end up neglecting the Law and its Feasts. And as a result, they experience the opposite of its purposes. The Feasts that were designed to bring the people into communion with God, when disobediently forsaken, create a chasm of separation and sin between the Lord and his chosen people. So what does God do in response? Send an angelic general down from heaven to blot humanity off the face of the earth? No. He sends his son. Not with a sword, but swaddled in cloth.
Jesus Christ was the only human being to walk this earth with true understanding, and obedience to the festival calendar. Jesus, unlike the rest of the world, saw the intention of God. He observed the Feasts at every point, knowing we had broken it at every point.
It was the Lord Jesus whom John described as “tabernacling among us,” in the beginning to his Gospel, signifying that God had once again come to guide his people. It is Jesus himself who promises to return at the end of the age with trumpet sound, ushering in the Kingdom of God. It was during the Feast of Weeks (called Pentecost) that Jesus and the Father sent the Holy Spirit down into the world. It was during the Passover that Jesus, the lamb of God, was crucified to provide a day of eternal atonement for his people. The next day, during the Feast of Unleavened bread, Jesus’ body lay buried in Joseph’s tomb, only to rise on the third day. Jesus walked the earth with his disciples during the Feast of Firstfruits, leading Paul to later label Jesus the “first fruit from among the dead” (1 Cor. 15:20–23).
But there is even more. Beyond simply keeping the right calendar of events, Jesus went a step further. He does just observe and fulfill the feasts. He perfects them. Through his death and resurrection, He replaced all the OT feasts with one, singular feast to be celebrated every Sabbath.
This is why the Lord said: Here, drink of my blood which is poured out for the forgiveness of many. Eat my flesh, which is my body, broken for you. Feast upon me.
Not only did he wipe our sins away – he himself becomes the very means by which we find holy communion with God. It is, in being joined with Christ, and partaking of his supper, that we experience what the Feasts were pointing us towards: communion with God.
If you are asking “how can I have this closeness with God?” Here is your answer. First, you need to see that Jesus has atoned for your failure to be with God as you should. And second, you need to see that Jesus himself has become the way in which we are brought into close communion with God. The intimate love you are searching for will be found in relationship with Jesus.
Grasp what is being said here. The God of the universe made you to feast with him! Your sin made that impossible, you ran the other way. So what does God do? He brings the Feast to you in the form of his beloved son. Only in Christ is the barrier of sin removed, and the way to communion made clear.
Let that sear your heart! Let this overwhelm you!
Every other world religion says “keep the feasts, and you will be near to God.” Jesus says “I’ve kept the feasts for you and came into the world to become your feast. Come to me, and you will find communion with God.” Only when you see this can you spend your year freely and joyfully centered around your Creator.
Amen.
